


something so precious about this

by the_crownless_queen



Series: Sapphic September 2019 [16]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Fluff, I love that this pairing already exists :p, Laura does not work for SHIELD, Laura gets an actual personality, Multi, Nat talks in her sleep when she feels safe, Sapphic September, Sapphic September 2019, as a treat, vague mentions of Nat's screwed up past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 10:21:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24848209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_crownless_queen/pseuds/the_crownless_queen
Summary: "Did you know Nat talked in her sleep sometimes?"
Relationships: Clint Barton/Laura Barton/Natasha Romanov
Series: Sapphic September 2019 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1473389
Comments: 8
Kudos: 88





	something so precious about this

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sapphic September 2019, Day 27: “Did you know that you talk in your sleep?”.
> 
> Because I love Clint and he deserved better, but if they gave him a wife and kids they could at least have had the decency to give them an actual personality. Also ClintLauraNatasha ftw ^^

Even though Laura would never dare tell her husband that, Natasha is actually a much better person to sleep with than him.

For once, she doesn’t try to smother Laura in her sleep — Laura’s woken up to many times to count feeling like she couldn’t breathe because Clint had rolled right onto her — and for another, she usually makes the bed in the morning without having to be asked.

They both steal the covers, though, because not even Laura’s luck can be that good, to have these two amazing people in her life and  _ not _ have some kind of drawback.

The talking in her sleep is new, though, and at first, Laura’s sure she’s dreamed it.

It’s just the two of them. A rare thing, too, since more often than not Natasha and Clint are sent out on joint missions, their team a fearsome thing to behold — or so Laura’s been told, anyway (or rather, not told, because she knows nothing about anything).

This time, however, Clint’s on an assignment Nat hasn’t told her is in Vietnam for a retrieval job that’s supposed to take two weeks.

Minimum.

And since Nat had busted her ankle in a foreign country on another mission that Laura knows nothing about last week, she’s supposed to take it easy for a while longer still.

Which means that Clint’s partnered with another team for this, and Laura gets Nat to herself for a fortnight.

Natasha never touches her when she sleeps. She never touches anyone in bed if they’re not having sex — getting her to even sleep with them without trying to seduce them like they were her marks first had been quite an ordeal (if Laura ever finds those Red Room people, Clint and Natasha won’t be the only ones with a body count).

It’s still nice, having someone close. Laura can hear her breathing, slow and soothing, and even though Nat can be an asshole who pretends to still be asleep just so she can jump up and scare her in the mornings, Laura wouldn’t trade her for anything in the world.

But yes, the talking part is new.

She muses on how to best bring it up over breakfast the next morning.

Natasha, dressed in one of Clint’s oversized shirts and still wearing her bedhead, is a different kind of lethal in the mornings, and Laura is so very grateful to be able to witness that.

(Times were Nat would slip out in the middle of the night, and Laura wouldn’t see her until the next time Clint brought her home. She’d never had a hair out of place back then, and she hadn’t looked real.

This Natasha, glaring at Laura’s ancient coffee machine she’d bought as an undergrad as it fails to produce any coffee, is the realest thing there is.)

“What is it?” Natasha suddenly asks, her fingers drumming against the metal as the coffee machine finally hums and whirs to life.

Laura startles and blinks, nearly choking on her tea. “What is what?” She hurries to mop up the tea she’s spilled, pouting a little at the waste.

“The thing you want to ask me,” Nat replies, rolling her eyes. She props her hips against the counter and arches her eyebrows in the way she knows Laura is weak against.

(Sometimes, dating superspies is the worst.)

“I…” Laura falters, though she isn’t sure why. It’s not really a thing, is it? Just something cute Natasha apparently does, the same way Laura apparently drools all over her pillow if she sleeps on her stomach or Clint still sometimes keeps his socks on because he’s used to having to put his shoes on in a hurry.

But she can’t just say nothing. Natasha hides it well, but Laura knows her better than most, and she knows Natasha  _ cares. _ Deeply so, especially when it comes to the people she loves.

The last thing Laura wants is to ever make Natasha doubt her welcome here, or how much Laura loves her. Clint may be her husband, but Natasha is… Missing piece feels reductive, and yet, it fits.

So she smiles gently over her cup of tea and shrugs. “Just… Did you know you talk in your sleep?”

Something flashes through Nat’s eyes, but it’s gone too quickly for Laura to catch, seamlessly covered up with the masks Natasha still sometimes pulls on to protect herself.

Laura’s stomach falls. She never wants Nat to feel unsafe.

“Anything interesting?” she asks with an easy grin that Laura  _ knows _ is faked.

“Nothing I could understand,” Laura answers truthfully, hoping that is the right answer.

The coffee machine lets out a sharp ring, but Natasha doesn’t move to pick up her cup. She stares Laura into the eyes, and Laura tries not to move.

She’s not sure she even could if she tried, to be honest. Natasha’s stare is intense and all-encompassing, and it makes every muscle in Laura’s body freeze up.

She doesn’t know what Nat’s looking for in her eyes, but she hopes she finds it.

“Hm,” Natasha finally says, rolling back on her knees. She picks up her coffee and looks away, and Laura feels like she can breathe again.

Natasha walks back to their table, her hips undulating like a snake leaving its prey behind, and sits.

She drums her fingers against the table a couple of times before sighing. This time, when she smiles, her smile is less faked.

“Shame,” she says, blowing on her cup before taking a blissful sip. “It could have been fun to know.”

Nat mumbles in her sleep every night until Clint comes back, but Laura doesn’t bring it up again.

* * *

Natasha stays the first night Clint comes back. Her hands roam over his body like she’s checking him for wounds more than anything really romantic or sexual (at first, anyway) but since Laura’s doing more or less the same, she can’t exactly judge.

She vanishes the next morning, though at least this time she stayed for breakfast.

“It’s progress, love,” Clint tells her with a kiss as they head back to the bedroom for a Sunday morning lie-in, and Laura hums back.

“About that,” she says, once Clint’s settled inside her arms (this was a good mission — he always wants to be held when it ended well for SHIELD. When it doesn’t, he holds her for hours, and doesn’t let her see him cry.).

Clint hums questioningly, twisting his head to look at her. “What?” he asks.

Laura licks her lips, considering how best to bring it up. “It’s nothing bad, I don’t think. It’s just… Did you know Nat talked in her sleep sometimes?” Her lips quirk up into a fond smile, because even though Nat’s reaction had been weird, the habit is harmless and rather cute. 

Clint stiffens in her arms, his eyes going wide with surprise. “She… Really? She did that? Here? More than once?”

Laura frowns. “Yes? I’m pretty sure she did it every night while you were gone, actually.” She casts her mind back to it, but it feels about right. She nods. “Yeah.”

Clint’s face breaks into a wide grin. He looks so happy that it makes Laura’s stomach swoop.

“So it’s a normal thing?” Laura asks.

Clint shrugs. “Meh… It’s a Nat thing,” he says. “She did it a couple times back when we were bunking together at SHIELD HQ.”

“Which I know nothing about,” Laura adds, the joke rehearsed now.

“Which you know nothing about,” Clint agrees, his lips twitching.

(She’s pretty sure by now that Director Fury knows about her — according to Clint and, more terrifyingly, Nat, that man knows everything — but since he hasn’t acted on it, Laura’s perfectly happy to believe that her husband and partner are not international spies working for a secret spy organization.)

Clint sighs and shifts in her arms, rolling his shoulders. “She’s never really come out and said it, but I think she only does it when she feels, you know,  _ safe. _ She needs to be sleeping deeply — and not drugged or unconscious — and she doesn’t really do that a lot.”

Laura nods. She can’t count the number of times she’d woken up in the middle of the night to find Nat awake and staring at her. 

In the beginning, it had understandably been nerve-wracking — there had been screaming, on her part and then Clint’s, as hers woke him up, and once, an arrow shot through the window as Nat had ducked Clint’s automatic blow.

(After that one, Laura had put her foot down and declared no more weapon under the pillow. Under the bed would have to do, and the split second it added meant Clint realized the person he thought was attacking them was Nat and thus not an enemy  _ before _ he shot their home full of arrows.)

“She has a very light sleep,” she comments out loud, but Clint’s probably remembering the same as her, because he lets out a fond snort.

“I don’t sleep the same on missions either,” he confesses, and Laura holds him tighter in response. He squeezes her arm in thanks, and Laura presses a kiss to his hair. “My point is, it’s usually not safe to sleep normally there, so we take shifts and we keep one ear open for danger.”

“Doesn’t sound very restful,” Laura says with a concerned frown.

Clint shrugs. “It works well enough. And I have you if I really have to sleep,” he adds with a roguish grin and a wiggle of his eyebrows that tells her he’s not thinking of actual sleep.

Laura snorts and swats his arm, shaking her head. “So what you’re saying is that now, Nat has that too?” She can feel her heart swell in her chest — she understands Clint’s earlier joyful grin so much better now.

“Yup,” Clint replies, popping out the ‘p’ happily. “You made her feel safe enough to relax, and I don’t think Nat has a lot of places she can really do that.”

Laura nods, her throat tight with emotions.  _ “We _ did that,” she corrects. “You and I.”

Clint shakes his head. “I wasn’t there last week.”

Laura frowns and sits up a little. “But you said she talked in her sleep at SHIELD too? And I know I wasn’t there.”

“I mean, yes, but that was only a few times, and over months. This happened, what, every week? This is huge, Lo’.”

Laura instantly pulls a face. “Ugh, don’t call me that, you know I hate it.”

“I do.” Clint snickers. He twists his head to kiss her cheek softly. “Sorry, couldn’t resist.”

Laura huffs. “Fine, I guess you can be forgiven then.”

“But really,” Clint continues, “this was you. You made her feel safe enough in our home to relax, and be herself and just let go — and yeah, when she does that, she talks in her sleep.”

Laura grins, feeling her stomach fizzle with joy. “I think we can agree it was a group effort — we never even would have met if you hadn’t brought her home one day.”

Clint pouts. “Those idiots at SHIELD were ruining her,” he whines. “She needed something that wasn’t the mission, or she’d have gotten killed.”

“And you liked her,” Laura adds, hiding the usual pained twinge of her heart at the mention of Natasha’s past behind a teasing grin.

They’ve talked about the past and the pain it contains often enough that rehashing it now wouldn’t help anything, anyway.

“And I liked her,” Clint confirms with an indulgent huff of laughter. 

Laura laughs back quietly. 

“Any idea what she’s saying when she sleep-talks, then?” she asks after a bit.

“No idea,” Clint replies with another shrug. His lips are curled into an amused smile that makes his eyes twinkle in a way that makes Laura’s knees grow weak.

Luckily, she’s not standing.

“I think it’s Russian, though,” he adds, his brow furrowed in thought. “Or at least it sounds like Russian.”

It’d make sense, too, seeing as Nat came from Russia. Out loud, she hums.

“Do you think we should learn Russian then?” she asks.

Clint startles in her arms, though she isn’t sure why. “That’s a good idea.”

“Hey, I have those,” Laura protests playfully.

“I know.” Clint snorts. “But you also tried to microwave an egg two weeks after we met, so…”

“Only because you told me you’d done it!” Laura swats his arm, laughing. “You’re lucky we didn’t end up killing ourselves!”

“That’d have been pretty dumb,” Clint agrees with a grin. “The great Hawkeye, vanquished by a microwaved egg.”

“It’s what you’d deserve,” Laura retorts with a snort. 

“Aw, love you too, Lo’.” He laughs and ducks away from her arm this time — almost falling off from the bed, which sets Laura off.

“You’re the worst husband,” Laura jokes. She can’t even properly fake a scowl without it turning into a grin, but she valiantly tries anyway, giving him a haughty sniff. “I should divorce you and marry Nat instead.”

Clint fake-sobs dramatically, putting a hand over his heart. “Betrayed — by my own wife! I knew you wanted her all to yourself.” He pouts when Laura laughs.

“Nah,” she says. “Somebody needs to keep her safe out there.”

“If anything, she keeps  _ me _ safe,” Clint retorts fondly, no doubt reminiscing a dozen missions Laura’s not supposed to know about.

“You keep each other safe,” Laura counters, and she shuffles closer to kiss his forehead. “And that,” she says, withdrawing to stare into his eyes, “is very important to me.”

Clint’s cheeks flush red, and Laura smirks back smugly.

“I should divorce you and be the one to marry Nat instead,” he mumbles back, embarrassed.

Laura laughs. “You couldn’t handle her. Also, she’d probably kill you if you left me.”

Clint snorts as he shuffles back into her arms. “Curses! Foiled again!” He lets out a dramatic sigh and lets his arms flop back onto the bed.

Laura shakes her head fondly at his antics. “Back to the matter at hand,” she starts. “Russian? Yes, no?”

“Yes, obviously,” Clint replies, rolling his eyes. “It’ll be useful on missions, and we can play the foreign tourist card next time we go out to mock everyone around.”

Laura shakes her head, laughing. “Of course that’s what you think of.”

Clint shrugs, sending her a mock-offended look. His lips keep twitching upward, though, so it’s not very convincing. “I’ll have you know I take my duty to mock the idiots very seriously.”

“Oh, I know,” Laura replies. Clint’s critics range from judging someone’s dressing sense (or lack thereof) to heckling actual armed racists, and Laura’s had to run away more than once because he bit off more than he could chew.

(Usually suburban mums who thought the eighties were back in style, because Clint had no qualms beating up racists. For those, Laura usually cheered and later paid the bail, if needed.)

Clint pouts back at her. “Why are you so mean today?”

“Oh, honey, you haven’t seen mean yet,” Laura retorts, letting her lips curl into the wicked grin she knows really affects her husband.

She lets her grin widens as he visibly swallows.

“That’s not fair,” he whines.

Laura shrugs back. “Never said it was.”

* * *

Laura, by virtue of having a normal nine-to-five job as opposed to Nat’s and Clint’s ‘whenever-we’re-needed’ type of schedule, actually picks Russian faster than her husband.

In his defense, SHIELD sent him after an 0-8-4 in Southern Asia barely two weeks after he came back from his latest mission, so that didn’t leave him a lot of time to learn.

Laura still feels very smug as she sends him screenshots of her Duolingo progress on a secure line.

“What are you doing?”

Natasha’s voice, coming from over her shoulder, startles her so badly that she screams, jumps up, and lunches her phone across the room.

Laura watches it sail away and clatter on the floor with horror, all the while Nat cackles in her ears.

“It better not be broken — we can’t all be covered by a government salary,” she mumbles as she gets up to pick up her phone.

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Nat replies, not sounding apologetic in the least.

“You mean SHIELD will buy me a new one,” Laura corrects with a snort as she bends down. She’s not quite sure how their system works, but Nat and Clint both get smartphones issued by SHIELD, and those get replaced almost instantly if they get broken.

Or ‘broken’, which is the case of Laura’s current phone, aka Clint’s previous one.

Luckily, though, the screen isn’t even cracked. “Huh, that’s impressive,” Laura states, her eyebrow raised in surprise.

Nat snorts. She’s taken advantage of the situation to claim Laura’s seat on the sofa for herself, sprawling herself across the length like the wife dramatically waiting for her husband to return from work in a sixties’ movie.

(Nat’s tastes in movies are eclectic and old-fashioned, but still better than Clint’s, who only seems to like  _ bad  _ movies.)

Laura walks back over and plops herself down in her lap with practiced ease. Nat shifts to accommodate her with an easy grin, and steals the phone right out of her hand.

Embarrassingly enough — or perhaps not, considering who Nat is — it actually takes Laura a few seconds to realize it’s even happened; seconds during which Nat’s already unlocked her phones and reopened her apps.

“Oh,” Nat says, her face strangely vulnerable for an instant before she hides it behind an uninterested mask. Her fingers stay clenched so tightly around the phone that they go bone-white. “You’re learning Russian.”

It’s not a question, but Laura treats it as such. “We thought it’d be nice,” she says truthfully, leaning back against Natasha, prompting Nat’s arms to snake against her waist. “But we can stop if you’d prefer we didn’t.”

Natasha stays silent for a long time, the warm, rhythmic puffs of breath against Laura’s neck and the arms around her waist the only real signs she’s still there. 

“No,” she finally says, tightening her hold on Laura’s waist and resting her cheek atop her head. Some of her hair cascades down the side of Laura’s face, tickling her, but Laura doesn’t dare move. The moment feels too precious.

“It’s fine,” Natasha says. “You can learn it. I don’t mind.” Laura can tell her lips twist into a smile. “It might be fun to have someone else to converse with.”

“You’re sure? You know we’ll stop if you want us to, right?”

Natasha huffs out a laugh against her hair. “Yes, Lo’, I know. I swear, I really don’t mind.”

Laura lets out a loud groan. “Come on, not you too! Can’t I please have another nickname already? You’re superspies, I’m sure you can come up with something better than the nickname I had when I was six.”

“We could,” Nat agrees dryly. 

“But you won’t,” Laura finishes with a half-frustrated, half-amused moan.

“But we won’t,” Nat repeats, mirth coloring her voice.

“You know I’ll be getting my revenge one day, right?” Laura quips back, unable to keep from smiling. “It’ll be when you least expect it, and it’ll be terrible.”

“I’m shaking in my boots,” Natasha replies, raising her legs to wiggle her bare toes openly.

Laura scowls as she huffs. “You’d better,” she mumbles, and apparently that’s too much for Nat, because she starts shaking with laughter.

Low giggles at first, but it quickly progresses into full-bellied laughter and she slides sideways onto the couch, muffling her laughter into a throw pillow.

Laura stares at her with a mock-offended pout that doesn’t last very long. “Nobody takes me seriously here,” she fake-complains, just to hear Nat laugh again.

Nat does, and she sits up, shaking her head. “I promise we take you very seriously, Laura,” Natasha replies, an entirely too convincing solemn expression painted on her face.

That means it’s fake, of course, but she huffs out in agreement anyway. “You’d better.”

It takes Natasha a few more moments to stop breaking off into giggles every other minute, but she does eventually get it back under control.

“Thanks,” she says, and Laura grin back gently, reaching down to lace their fingers together.

“Of course,” Laura replies. “We should have done it years ago.”

Natasha shrugs. “I wouldn’t have let you then.”

Laura jerks back in surprise. “But you will now?”

Natasha hums back in agreement, squeezing her hand. “Yeah. I told you, it’ll be nice having someone else to talk with.”

Laura swallows thickly. “Well, thanks for trusting us with this, then.”

“It’s just a language,” Natasha retorts, almost defensively before she forcefully relaxes. “You’re welcome,” she mumbles, looking away.

(That night, when Laura wakes up in the middle of the night to hear Natasha talk smothered words into her pillow, she stops breathing.

Her heart pounds in her chest as she strains her ears to listen, trying to pick out the words, and she almost ruins it by laughing out loud when she finally does.

They’re nonsense, of course. Funny nonsense, because sleepy Nat sounds very much like serious Nat, except that sleepy Nat apparently builds sentences like  _ The moon ate the soap _ and  _ Cat is up. _

Or maybe that was _Soup_ _is up,_ Laura’s Russian still isn’t the best.

She still can’t wait to tell Clint about it — she knows he’ll get a kick out of this.

Also they’d had a bet going on about when Nat would next sleep-talk and what she would say, and Laura’s just won.)


End file.
